Pre K Graduation

I just can't believe that my little man just graduated from Pre-K! I thought I was all prepared for this cute ceremony but I really wasn't! We had just gotten back from vacation the night before and so I was rushing around trying to get to the school for graduation (in fact, my mom, dad and Josh all beat me there!). So I got there just in the nick of time. I did not know they would be in caps and gowns and they would march in to the graduation processional! Oh my! Boy, did my mommy tears begin to swell up in my eyes! He was just too cute and I just couldn't believe we had gotten to the end of the year already.

It was a darling ceremony with the kids singing all kinds of songs about growing up and going to kindergarten. They also signed the alphabet while saying it in Spanish and I must say I was pretty impressed! They each got a diploma and at the end they had each written a paragraph about what they wanted to be when they grew up and why with a picture. All the kids stood up introducing themselves and then they read their papers. I didn't know if Paxton had done one since we had been gone the previous week, I was afraid he just wouldn't get a turn but I was excited when he stood up for his turn. He stood up and read the paper he had written and it said: "Hi, my name is Paxton and when I grow up I want to be a basketball player because I like to dribble the ball and I am very good at it!" So cute! He does love to dribble that ball, makes his daddy proud! (Of course we do have this all on video but I still don't know how to convert it from the hard drive.) Then they all threw their caps in the air and the ceremony part was over. We went back to his classroom (the ceremony was supposed to be outside but alas the weather had other plans for the ceremony) and had refreshments. His teachers Ms. Spencer and Ms. Hayer had made scrapbooks for them from throughout the year and gave each of them a wooden letter from their name.

Paxton has done really well overall this year, not without some bumps of course but we are really thankful for his school and teachers who worked with Paxton and us to help him achieve academic and social success. We have been blessed this year and we are really praying hard about next year and kindergarten. We feel Paxton is ready and although being the youngest will be a challenge for him, we pray he will succeed and grow in favor with God and man! We love you little dude!

Getting his diploma from Ms. Spencer

Reading his what I want to be paper.

Signing the alphabet in Spanish.

Paxton, Ms. Hayer, and Ms. Spencer, Pre K Graduation 2009

Dessert anyone?

While on vacation, we hit the motherload of desserts. There were fabulous desserts every night and we stuffed ourselves daily! They were all good but nothing topped this dessert on the left. It was called "The Titanic" and after we got it we saw why! Pictures really do not do this dessert justice. It was enormous, the biggest dessert I have ever seen served at a restaurant. It had 18 scoops of ice cream on top of a huge brownie and it was covered in chocolate syrup and whipped cream. We could barely put a dent in it! People laughed and stared when the waiter brought it out and I just had to snap a picture! We got this dessert while eating at Carmine's, which is a family style Italian restaurant. The portions were all enormous, way more than this family of four could even eat half of!

I think this wraps up our fun trip to Atlantis. We all had a great time and have recovered from travel. The kids did a great job on our first out of the country vacation. Here's to more!

Since I let Lorelei wear a dress every night of vacation we are now fighting the daily battle of wanting to wear dressed EVERY day! I wish she would have informed me of this fashion decision before I bought her summer wardrobe!

Another great shot by Paxton!

The huge rope bridge. It was actually quite swingy and I was nervous to let Paxton run across it but being the boy he is, he just had to do it!

There was band playing in the Marina village most evenings. The kids got to pick out instruments and play with the band!

Checking out the sharks!

Another aquarium shot!

Some Serious Water Fun!

We had some serious water fun in the Bahamas at Atlantis. As I mentioned, they have over 40 different pools and who knows how many water slides. Of course most days we parked it right next to this awesome kid play area. Paxton spent hours playing with all the different water sprayers and shooters. It was wonderful just to let that little boy burn up all the energy being as carefree as he wanted! Lorelei loved the pools too, but she was more content just to sit in the zero depth entry part and play with her buckets and shovels.

In addition to this kid water pool, there was a massive lazy/rapid river. If you did the whole thing it would take about 30 minutes to ride through. There really isn't much to the lazy section of it but more really big waves and rapids that you go through on an inner tube. We took both kids and I can just say that one LOVED it and one HATED it! I bet you can guess who! However, at some point during the week both kids were knocked out of their daddy's inner tube by the gigantic waves and into the rapids. Luckily they have a fast daddy who never let go of them. Lorelei was of course frightened out of her mind from that point on and Paxton was just more perturbed that it happened. Thank goodness for life vests! I also enjoyed riding with Paxton but was quite nervous after I saw Lorelei flip out.

Paxton loved what water slides he could ride but he tells everyone that he wants to go back and ride the "Abyss" but you have to be 48 inches to ride that. Josh and I took turns riding some of the other fabulous water slides . . . reminiscing to our previous trip of more freedom! We did go to the beach one day but it was so hot and sandy and all of our poor little feet got burned on the way back in. Of course the kids loved getting sandy from their heads to their toes but the parents would rather sit out by the pool!
So, one more post after this and I should have this vacation wrapped up!

Waiting in the lobby while daddy does his daily arguing with the front desk on crazy charges to our room. Let me just tell you, that this place LOVED to charge you for every breath you took whether you took one or not!

We loved walking the grounds in the evenings. Every night we found a new path and different things to explore!

Another professional picture by Pax!

Paxton loved this water slide. We let him walk up to it by himself and he just did it over and over!

We saw another couple taking their pictures in this scenic spot and we thought it would make for a great pic, turned out pretty good!

Lorelei and her shovel. She also kept calling this area of the pool her "garden".

This is one of the spots Paxton spent lots of time in. There are several water sprayers right inside of the landing and he loved shooting them everywhere!

The big bucket at the top would fill up every couple of minutes and dump out huge amounts of water on the people below. Lorelei screamed every time it happened for the first few days even though she was never near it! My silly girl!

What a good daddy! He loved getting in the pools all week and really playing with his kiddos!

The Seahorse Pool. Lorelei loved this pool and wanted to go in it all the time.

The kids chilled out in the shade when it was time for lunch and enjoyed resting and eating! Lorelei even took a few naps laying here by the pool.

The Lost City

We have just returned from the lost city of Atlantis! Ok, not the real one but the vacation spot in the Bahamas. We had a really great family trip, yes we took the kids (everybody asks!) and they loved it too! Josh and I went a couple of years ago and decided the kids needed to go too, so we brought them along. We had a fabulous and relaxing vacation just chilling out at the pool/beach and watching the kiddos have some fun. I know, you might say "You went all the way to the Bahamas for that?" But there is much more to Atlantis than just a kiddie pool. There are actually over 40 different pools on this resort, that happens to be the largest in the world. So that kept us busy during the days and at night you ask? Well, Atlantis also holds the name for housing the largest aquarium in the world. So needless to say my kids were mighlty entertained with the amazing sea creatures, endless tunnels and mazes and just the overall atmosphere of the Atlantis. There were also tons of restaurants (although not as many as the first time we went) for us to enjoy in the evening.

Speaking of restaurants and eating, my little Lorelei is not so little anymore. That girl put it away while we were on vacation! Just to give you a little frame of reference, just for snacks/lunch I brought 2 boxes of pb&j, a box of nutrigran bars, a box of granola bars, a box of rice krispie treats and a box of packaged peanut butter crackers- by day 3 it was almost all gone and definitely finished by day 4! Lorelei gained 2 pounds over the week, which would be the equivalent of me gaining 13 pounds in one week! So anyway, we are super excited about that. Ok I digress, back to the topic.

So, we had a good time playing and eating and seeing the sights. I also enjoyed a nice Mother's Day while we were down there just being with my family. I must mention another highlight of mine at least. Atlantis holds lots of concerts and while we were down there the Jonas brothers performed and later that week Miley Cyrus was performing. So one night while we were walking around the marina shopping village there we ran into Miley! She was just shopping around with her family, of course a few body guards but really not that many people had even noticed. I wanted to get a picture but the body guards said they would confiscate my camera (which I found out later that they couldn't actually have done that!). A friend that we met down there took some pics and said she would email them to me. Ok, Josh you can stop laughing at me now!

I have been trying to narrow down the tons of pictures I took so here are some for now and I will have to post more later.

Thank goodness for the Leapster. This thing kept Paxton entertained at the airports while we had to wait!
Food kept Lorelei entertained at the airports, seriously.

The first night we arrived.

The first night we ate at a place called Bimini Road. They had all kinds of cool things for the kids. We had a balloon guy come to our table and then a really cool magician entertained our table for the rest of dinner. The kids loved the personal attention!

The Dig was one of the many aquarium spots that we spent lots of time at.

The view from our room.

Another view from our room. This pictures shows one of the many water slides here.

This is a partial picture of the Royal Towers. Atlantis has many different places or buildings you can stay at. The Beach, Coral, and Royal Towers, the Cove, the Reed and Harborside.

Some sweet shots of my beach beauty!

My little beach bum. This boy is just like his mama and daddy, he tans and his gets all sun bleached! He looks so cute! Lorelei on the other hand got somebody else's skin because she burns like crazy. I keep them both good and covered (we went through one can of 50spf in 3 days!) but especially my little princess!

The bridge you see in between at the top is actually called the Michael Jordon suite. It is priced at $25,000 a night. We could only afford two nights in it this time. HA!

So I love this picture for a couple of reasons. One is because it is a great shot of me and Josh but two because Paxton took it for us. Didn't he do great? He ended up taking several great shots of us throughout the vacation.

However, this is what happened sometimes!

The end of an evening. The kids were exhausted from playing and walking so much. I think we were all in bed and asleep every night by 8:30!